Published 4:00 am, Friday, July 7, 2000

2000-07-07 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- The former spokesman for Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who recommended the impeachment of President Clinton, has been charged with criminal contempt in an investigation of news leaks in the Monica Lewinsky investigation.

The documents do not specify precisely why Bakaly faces criminal charges, but they indicate that his legal problems stem from statements he made in an investigation of leaks from Starr's office in the independent counsel's impeachment inquiry.

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Bakaly requested a public trial in the case and Johnson signed an order on June 29 granting his motion, the court documents said.

Bakaly did not return telephone calls and there was no answer at the home of one of his lawyers last night.

At issue is a front-page article published in the New York Times on Jan. 31, 1999, in the president's impeachment trial before the Senate. The article reported that Starr had concluded, after intensive discussions with constitutional scholars in his office, that he had the constitutional authority to indict a sitting president.

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The article noted that Starr had not decided whether, or when, to seek such an indictment. It cited "several associates of Mr. Starr" as sources and quoted Bakaly as saying that no one in the office would discuss Starr's plans "in any way, shape or form."

Bakaly denied at the time that he was a source of the article and has maintained his denials. But after an internal investigation of unauthorized disclosures from Starr's office, Bakaly abruptly resigned from the independent counsel's office on March 11, 1999.

Starr said he accepted Bakaly's resignation "with regret," but left no doubt that his aide's departure and the newspaper disclosures were linked.

Editors at the Times have said they do not and will not discuss the sources for the article.

Johnson oversaw the grand jury that Starr used to gather evidence about Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky. The judge repeatedly warned all parties in the case against discussing grand jury material with news organizations. She ruled in favor of Clinton's lawyers when they accused Starr and his associates of discussing privileged material with reporters from a number of news organizations and asked them to stop doing so.

But in September 1999 a federal appeals court overruled Johnson, saying there was nothing illegal in discussions by Starr or his aides with reporters about deliberations over whether to indict Clinton. The three- judge appeals court panel ruled unanimously that such discussions were not covered by grand jury secrecy rules and their publication did not violate any laws.

Bakaly apparently faces legal jeopardy not for any role he might have played in disclosing such information, but rather for statements he made to Justice Department officials who investigated the office of independent counsel for illegal disclosures of grand jury material in the wake of the Times article and other press accounts.